On Friday, April 11th, the Central Asian Studies RIW will meet in 1014 Tisch at 4pm to workshop an article-in-progress from Hazal Ozdemir, a 2024-2025 Manoogian Postdoctoral Fellow in Armenian History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The article is titled, "Women’s Mobility as a Legal Battlefield:Gendering Armenian Property in the Late Ottoman Empire," and a description is below. All are invited to attend and take part in the workshop!  We will provide free food for all attendees. The paper will be circulated one week before the workshop. 
The transatlantic journey of Ottoman Armenians began as a temporary labor migration for men. However, the policies of Abdülhamid II's government (1876-1909) quickly changed the nature of this mobility. In 1896, an imperial decree permitted Armenians to emigrate to the United States if they renounced their Ottoman subjecthood and pledged not to return. When Armenian men who had migrated before 1896 faced deportation upon return, they sought to bring their families to the U.S. This paper argues that the Hamidian government enacted complicated laws regarding the emigration of Armenian women, reflecting a strategy aimed at seizing Armenian property and challenging American extraterritoriality. 
For questions please reach out to Albert Cavallaro at albertca@umich.edu. 
Best, Albert Cavallaro